


Untouchables

by georgiamagnolia



Category: Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-10
Updated: 2011-07-10
Packaged: 2017-10-21 05:33:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/georgiamagnolia/pseuds/georgiamagnolia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Napoleon runs into an old school friend after wrapping up a mission and they share a drink and some conversation.</p><p>((originally posted elsewhere November 2K10))</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untouchables

“A lot of adjectives have been used to describe my profession. When you come right down to it, I suppose I’m a garbage man. I spend my life clearing trash out of the corners. It’s a necessary job, not everyone can do it,” Napoleon sighed. “Some days I’m not sure I want to do it myself. Then some new threat crops up or another vast amount of innocent lives are threatened and I’m back out in the fray again. I wish I could say I hate it. I do hate the threat and the loss of those innocents before we can get there and put a stop to the tyrants or whoever is the bully of the moment. But I can’t say I hate my job, I just hate that there a need for me to do it, me and others like me.”

“You don’t hate being in danger and putting yourself on the line for countless others who don’t even know you do it?”

Napoleon laughed, “No, I don’t need fame, certainly not for this, that would be counterproductive, wouldn’t it?” He raised his glass and tipped it briefly at his companion before taking another sip of the smooth brandy.

“Undoubtedly,” his companion said, raising his own glass is salute and taking a his own sip.

“What on Earth would Professor Langsdon have to say to us?”

“He would say that we were discovering our potential, or something equally vague. I think he was trying to sound wise and sage and all knowing. After all this time, I think he was just as clueless as we were.”

“Clueless, wise, there is a fine line between them, really.”

“Do you really think so, Napoleon?”

“So far.”

They drank in silence for a long while, listening to the rain drum on the window.

“I’m not sorry either.”

“Sorry about what, Napoleon?”

“I’m not sorry for the job I do. While I am sorry it is needed, I am not sorry that I am good at it, not sorry that I fulfill my duties to the best of my abilities. I’m not sorry that people are saved, sometimes hundreds or thousands, sometimes only one. I’m not sorry that in large part, they will never know what we do, what is needed. I’d like to think that someday, down the line a generation or three, I and my kind will never be needed again. I like to think it, in the darkest secret part of the night when nobody knows.”

“You always were the romantic, Napoleon.”

Napoleon looked up in surprise. “You mean to tell me that you don’t hope the same kind of thing?”

“My hope and my acceptance of reality are two very different things. This world has never been meant for peace, my friend, it is a testing ground, a place where what we’re really about comes to the fore. Some, like yourself, rise to the top. You are, underneath it all, still the idealist. You fight the worst the world has to offer while hoping for the best.” There was silence for a moment, filled only by the continuing rainfall and the howl of wind like an animal’s cry. “I just try to help the ones in between find their way to the light, to the higher path. You’ve already found yours.”

“You should meet my partner, the two of you could debate pragmatism while we wait out the storm.” Napoleon finished his drink and poured another, holding up the bottle and pouring for his old friend when the glass was held out.

“How did you find yourself here?”

“Illya, that’s my partner, and I were sent in to gather some intel on a professor at the old alma mater, turns out he was on the side of the angels after all, so we’re off duty now. Illya got into a long discussion about some inconceivable theory or other so I decided to go for a walk and got caught in the rain. Nothing sinister here, thankfully.”

“No, I meant, how did you fine your way into my little corner?”

“Oh, well,” Napoleon looked almost abashed, “I like to light a candle every once in a while, old habits I suppose. Superstition maybe. I saw the place and felt the urge to remember the lost, I guess.”

“It’s a comfort from the dim past, huh?”

“I suppose, in some ways. I never lost my belief so much as lost the need for the trappings.”

“Absolution is dependant upon the need for perfection, to perfect oneself by purging what is seen as unacceptable; tacit permission given in exchange for a promise of eventual acceptance, though I think few people would admit it. You need none of those things, Napoleon, your actions are your ritual, your job is it’s own justification. Like the untouchables in the far East, you do the job that no one wants to admit needs done, that no one wants to do themselves. You cannot help but be affected by it, and yet, you carry grace within yourself as well.”

“Is that your professional opinion?”

His friend fingered the collar he wore, almost unconsciously. There was another long pause and the wind outside quieted, the rain slowing to a gentle patter on the window. “Yes, Napoleon, it is my opinion, professional and otherwise, that you live in a state of grace, and anyone who tells you differently can come see me about it.”

Napoleon smiled. “I thank you for that, Father,” and he laughed. “You know how wrong that sounds? You were voted most likely to get caught by the coach behind the bleachers, and here you are, in vestments.”

“And you were voted most likely to become a hermit in Tibet, so there you go, things change. And you can still call me Patrick, you know.”

“Ah, yes, but gone are the days of Paddy and the boys carousing all night and debating the merits of bourbon versus brandy until dawn.”

“Well, mostly, yes. I still like a good brandy though.” Patrick raised his glass to Napoleon and drank the rest of it.

“And what would your ancestors think?”

“They’d just be glad I had a drink and a calling, I suppose.”

“It was good to see you, even by accident.”

“Do you suppose it was? An accident I mean?”

“Just as likely not. But I leave the quantum calculations of probabilities to my scientific minded partner and will let you have the philosophical pondering.”

“And you?”

“I suppose I am left with the magic of hope.”

Patrick was about to comment when Napoleon’s communicator buzzed at him. “Solo here,” he answered it.

“Napoleon, we have a reservation to keep.”

“Ah, yes, Illya, that we do. Pick me up outside the church if you would, it’s across the quad, you can’t miss it.”

“Five minutes then. Kuryakin out.”

“Your partner, he’s…”

“Russian, yes. And a better man I’ve never had at my back.”

“What a curious pair you must make.”

“You don’t know the half of it. Perhaps if we find our way here again, you can meet him, that is a conversation I would love to watch. Not to mention the drinking.”

“I still hold the title over at the Library Tavern, I think they retired it after we graduated from the university.”

“They’d have to, any normal mortal would die of alcohol poisoning trying to keep up with you. Except maybe my partner.”

“Not a normal mortal then?”

“The jury is still out on that one.”

A car horn sounded and the two men stood. Father Patrick put out his hand, Napoleon took it. “Go in as much peace as you can, my friend.”

“Thank you, Patrick, and you as well.”

Patrick walked his old friend to the door of the little stone church, stood in the doorway as Napoleon ran for the car through the continuing fall of rain, gentler now that the storm was passing. He smiled as the car moved into the dusk. He turned and locked up, then went to the first pew in his little church, sat and remembered. Then he knelt to say a prayer for his friend, and all the unknowns who kept his world safe, doing a job that very few would ever know, or want to know.


End file.
